Friday, April 13, 2012

Awesome Mount Cook

We had such an amazing time at Mt Cook last year that we went for longer this time. On the way we stayed at the Lake Tekapo camping ground in a standard cabin. I have to say that it was a very expensive standard cabin! Poor tourists.
Then we went on to Mt Cook on Saturday and had two nights at the fabulous Hermitage. We stayed in the motels where the boys had their own room (yeah - some relief from their noise!) and we had the amazing complimentary buffet breakfast looking down the valley to Mt Cook itself.

The boys on the deck outside our backpacker room

The weather was amazing and so we completed or semi completed some walks. The boys love walking on the Moraine's - they look like adventurers against the skyline. Unfortunately I did not manage so well. I am noticing my deteriorating heart a lot more when in the outdoors. But this did not detract from our fabulous few days.
On Monday Aaron tramped up to the Mueller Hut and then on to Mt Olliver. He stayed the night at the hut. His photos are amazing.

The view from the deck off our room

The cool thing was that the boys and I walked with him to the track turnoff (where it goes uphill for 3 hours solid!!!) and we could see him climbing most of the way to the Sealy tarns. We found that really exciting and everytime we saw him appear we screamed and shouted. Eventually we had to contain ourselves as others high on the track thought there was something wrong when we were yelling.
We had awesome weather most of the time but Monday night the rain started. The boys and I stayed in a room at the backpackers (it use to be the old THC hotel when I worked for SPHC chain) and the picked up a drenched Aaron the next morning after he tramped down the hill.